Field Observation / Reflective Service Analysis
Does a wellness space need to feel relaxing?
A reflection prompted by experiencing two very different approaches to wellness environments.
Observation
The space is part of the service experience.
When we think about designing a wellness service, it's easy to focus primarily on the treatment or intervention being delivered.
But the customer is experiencing the service way before the treatment even begins.
She's already walked through the door. She's noticed the environment. She's been greeted, or hasn't. She's registering the lighting, sound, layout, materials, privacy and perhaps scent.
In Service Design, the physical environment surrounding a service experience can be considered part of the servicescape.
My own response to wellness environments isn't always the same.
If I'm going somewhere to relax and de-stress, I love natural materials, greenery and a space that helps me come down from the day or week. Aqua Sana Forest Spa is a good example of the kind of environment I personally associate with that feeling. Even scent can make a huge difference to me.
But then I think about my experience of walking into Clean Your Dirty Face in Winter Park, Florida.
It wasn't the kind of wellness environment I would traditionally describe as calming or natural. It felt much more dynamic, quirky and contemporary.
And I liked it.
I remember having that feeling of:
“Ooh... what's going on in here?”
The environment was already telling me something about the experience before I'd fully understood the service model.
I had a sense of the kind of customer it might appeal to, the pace of the experience and even where it might sit in the market.
Assumption challenged
That experience stayed with me because it challenged an assumption:
A wellness space doesn't necessarily have to look traditionally “relaxing” to create the right experience.Different wellness services are trying to create different experiences for different customers.
Details from the environment that shaped my experience and prompted the question: does a wellness space need to look traditionally relaxing?
Design question
So perhaps the more useful design question isn't:
“Does this look like a wellness space?”
It's:
“What do we want the customer to feel when she enters this particular service, and does the servicescape support that?”That question can influence everything from layout and customer flow to sensory cues, privacy, reception, materials and how people interact with the space.
For wellness practitioners and businesses, the physical environment isn't only decoration around the service. It's a powerful touchpoint through which the service is experienced.
This is one of the places where my understanding of wellness, environment and Business Innovation & Service Design for the wellness sector naturally come together.
The question isn't whether a space looks like wellness. It's whether the environment supports the experience the service is trying to create.
Alicia A. Walters